Conventionally, apparatuses which record and play back both still image files and motion image files on and from a memory card, disk, and another removable disk are known. Some apparatuses of this type have a function of displaying a list (INDEX) in which reduced images (thumbnails) of individual files are arranged into a predetermined array form.
The contents of an image of a still image file can be recognized at once by a thumbnail. For a motion image, however, only the first frame is usually displayed in a reduced scale as a thumbnail, so the contents of the whole motion image are difficult to recognize. To check the contents of a motion image file, the motion image file must be played back from the beginning. This makes file search time-consuming.